Who Raised Jesus from the Dead?
Among the central doctrines of Christian faith, nothing rivals the resurrection of Jesus Christ in both historical gravity and theological depth. It is the cornerstone of redemption, the divine vindication of the crucified Messiah, and the assurance of the believer’s future hope. The apostle Paul clearly tied the gospel’s essence to this event when he proclaimed, “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). To understand who raised Jesus from the dead, one must consider the divine unity and distinct personal actions within the Trinity, the scriptural testimony regarding the Spirit’s power in resurrection, and the broader spiritual and historical participation in this act of new creation. This inquiry is not speculative theology but a direct engagement with the biblical record, which attributes the resurrection simultaneously to the Father, to the Son himself, and to the Holy Spirit.
The Father’s Role in the Resurrection
Throughout the New Testament, one of the most frequent affirmations is that “God raised Jesus from the dead.” This formula occurs repeatedly in apostolic preaching, particularly in the book of Acts. Peter, proclaiming at Pentecost, declared, “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:23-24). The subject “God” here refers primarily to God the Father, consistent with how early Christians used the term in distinction to the Son (see, Acts 3:13-15; Romans 10:9).
This attribution is rooted in the covenantal relationship between the Father and the Son. Jesus’ obedience unto death accomplished atonement, while the resurrection signifies the Father’s approval–his public declaration that Jesus’ sacrifice fully satisfied divine justice. As Paul writes, “He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25). The Father’s act of raising Jesus is both vindication and enthronement, ensuring that the Son’s humiliation is transfigured into exaltation.
The Old Testament foreshadowed this paternal action. Psalm 16:10 declares, “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.” Peter and Paul both cite this text as prophetic of the resurrection (Acts 2:31; 13:34-37). Similarly, Isaiah 53:10-12 portrays the suffering servant who, after death, “shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days.” The Father’s raising of Jesus thus fulfills the messianic trajectory from suffering to glory, promised long before the incarnation.
Paul’s epistles reinforce this continuous pattern of divine agency. In Romans 6:4, he writes that “Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,” where “glory” denotes the active manifestation of divine power and faithfulness. Likewise, in Galatians 1:1, Paul greets the churches as an “apostle… through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.” The resurrection, then, stands as the Father’s affirmation of the Son’s person and work, crowning the cross with triumph and ensuring salvation for those united to the risen Christ.
The Son’s Participation in His Own Resurrection
While the Father is frequently named as the source of resurrection, Scripture also clearly affirms that Jesus possessed inherent authority and power to raise himself. In John 10:17-18, Jesus states unambiguously: “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” Here the divine Son asserts not only his willing obedience in death but also his life-giving authority, bestowed within the economy of the Father’s will. The perfect unity of divine purpose means that the Son’s self-resurrection is inseparable from the Father’s initiative.
Elsewhere, Jesus’ declarations identify himself as possessing divine life-giving power. In John 2:19-21 he declared, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Gospel clarifies, “He was speaking about the temple of his body.” Though misunderstood by his audience, this prophetic statement captures both the literal prediction of resurrection and the theological affirmation that Jesus himself would raise his own physical body from death.
In another profound statement, Jesus affirmed, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). At Lazarus’s tomb, this was not a mere claim to mediate divine power–it identified resurrection as an attribute of his very being. The Son’s life is the source of all life, including the giving of new, imperishable existence.
Philippians 2:8-11 further unites the Son’s humility and exaltation: after being “obedient to the point of death,” God “highly exalted him.” While the Father bestows exaltation, the Son’s resurrection confirms his divine equality: one cannot hold simultaneous truths about a merely passive object of resurrection and an active divine subject who participates in it unless that subject shares the divine nature.
Thus, the Son is both raised and raiser–the one obedient to the Father’s will and the possessor of self-existent life. Jesus’ sovereign control over his own resurrection demonstrates that his death was never defeat, but the voluntary moment in redemptive history when God’s life triumphed over sin and death.
The Spirit’s Power in Resurrection
The third personal agent revealed in Scripture as participating in the resurrection is the Holy Spirit. This connection is most explicit in Romans 8:11: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” This verse intertwines all three divine persons–the Father (“he who raised”), the Son (“Christ Jesus”), and the Spirit (the operative means of resurrection).
The Spirit here acts as the personal agent of divine life, the breath that reanimates the body of Jesus. This same Spirit is now pledged to believers as the guarantee of their future resurrection. The point is not that the Spirit operates independently from the Father and the Son, but that the resurrection is a Trinitarian act: the Father raises the Son through the agency and power of the Spirit.
The Spirit’s life-giving power is a consistent theme throughout Scripture. From the creation narrative–“The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2)–to the prophetic vision of Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37:9-10), the Spirit is the divine principle that animates and renews. The Spirit who breathed life into Adam and who brought restoration to Israel prefigured the climactic act of imparting resurrection life to the incarnate Son.
Peter echoes this reality when he writes that Christ “was put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit” (1 Peter 3:18). The participle “made alive” (zoopoieo) conveys more than a mere return to breathing; it signifies reanimation into a transformed, glorified existence–the firstfruits of new creation (1 Corinthians 15:20). Thus, the Spirit who raised Jesus is the same Spirit who indwells the church, making resurrection not only a past event but a continuing power within believers’ lives.
The Trinitarian Unity of the Resurrection
These combined biblical testimonies show that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit each share fully in the resurrection of Jesus. This does not imply three competing acts but one unified divine action expressed by each person’s distinct role. Classical Christian theology holds that all external works of God–the opera ad extra–are indivisible because the Trinity is indivisible in essence and will. Augustine famously observed that divine acts toward creation (such as creation, redemption, and resurrection) belong to the one triune God, though Scripture may attribute them distinctly to emphasize relational or functional roles within salvation history.
In the resurrection, the Father acts as the source, the Son as the active subject within humanity, and the Spirit as the divine power that effects new life. Each person of the Trinity participates fully, for the divine essence operates indivisibly. This understanding protects against modalism (the reduction of the Trinity to one person appearing in different forms) and also against any notion of hierarchy that would make one person’s power superior to another’s. Rather, resurrection manifests perfect cooperation within divine unity.
Who Was Involved in the Resurrection of Jesus?
Humanly speaking, the resurrection was witnessed and later proclaimed by Jesus’ disciples, but no human being was involved in causing it. The Roman guards who sealed the tomb were overcome by heavenly power (Matthew 28:3-4), and the stone was rolled away by an angelic messenger, not to let Jesus out but to reveal that he was already risen (Matthew 28:6). Angels thus serve as the first cosmic heralds of the divine victory that humanity could neither initiate nor comprehend.
The Father, Son, and Spirit alone participated as agents. Yet all creation participates as beneficiary. The resurrection inaugurates the renewal of all things, reversing the curse of Genesis 3 and becoming the guarantee of a future resurrection for those united with Christ. Paul ties believers directly to this divine act when he writes, “God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power” (1 Corinthians 6:14). Through faith and the indwelling Spirit, the same power that raised Jesus operates in the church’s moral renewal: “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).
Therefore, the participants in resurrecting Jesus belong solely to the Godhead; yet the fruits of that act extend to redeemed humanity and, ultimately, to the renewed creation. The resurrection is both cosmic and personal: it vindicates Jesus, inaugurates eschatological life, and empowers believers through the Spirit until their own resurrection at his return.
The Spirit that Raised Jesus from the Dead
Romans 8:11 specifically names “the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead.” This Spirit is none other than the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, who unites believers with Christ in both death and resurrection. Paul identifies this same Spirit earlier in the chapter as “the Spirit of God” and “the Spirit of Christ” (8:9). Therefore, the Spirit’s resurrection power is not external to Christ but proceeds from and reveals the inseparable life of Father and Son. The Spirit is the divine breath that fills the dead humanity of Jesus and transforms it into a glorified, incorruptible existence.
This relationship between Spirit and resurrection underlies Christian sanctification. The Spirit who animates the risen Christ now dwells in believers, producing spiritual vitality where death once reigned. The resurrection thus becomes the pattern for both justification and transformation–the believer’s participation in Christ’s risen life now and in bodily resurrection later.
The Fulfilment and the Hope - Jesus Raised from the Grave
The resurrection’s significance cannot be confined to Christology alone; it defines all Christian hope. Through the Father’s glory, the Son’s self-existent life, and the Spirit’s indwelling power, God inaugurated the first act of the new creation. What was prefigured in prophetic language–life breathed into dry bones, deliverance from Sheol, renewal after exile–now stands fulfilled in Jesus’ bodily resurrection.
The psalmist’s trust, “You will not abandon my soul to Sheol” (Psalm 16:10), becomes a confession on the lips of every believer through union with Christ. As Paul declares, “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5). The one act of God that raised Jesus ensures that the same life-giving power will extend to all who belong to him when he appears again.
Thus, to the question “Who raised Jesus from the dead?” the most faithful answer is profoundly Trinitarian: the Father raised the Son, the Son took up his life again, and the Spirit imparted the power that made his humanity alive and incorruptible. The whole Godhead was involved, displaying cooperative harmony in the climactic act of redemption. The resurrection was not an isolated miracle but the revelation of divine unity–Father, Son, and Spirit acting together to bring life out of death and guarantee eternal hope for those justified through faith in the risen Christ.
In this sense, the resurrection is both the work of the undivided Trinity and the model of divine indwelling power for the believer. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead now lives within the redeemed, continually affirming that no force of death can separate creation from the life-giving love of God revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).